Street Fight Daily: FTC Reviews Waze Deal, Twitter Developing Hyperlocal Ads
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology
Google Confirms Antitrust Review of Waze Deal (Wall Street Journal)
Google on Saturday confirmed that it has been contacted by lawyers from the Federal Trade Commission over the company’s $1.1 billion acquisition of the mobile navigation company Waze, which closed in mid-June. The FTC would have to determine whether Waze would have become a head-to-head competitor with Google, whose Google Maps software is the dominant digital mapping and navigation service around the world, or whether there is any evidence, such as emails, that showed Google wanted to acquire the company only to keep it from rivals. Related: At recent Street Fight Summit West conference, a Waze executive noted that “What search did for the Internet, maps will do for mobile.” (Street Fight)
6 Strategies for Reaching Customers at the ‘Zero Moment of Purchase’ (Street Fight)
Targeting consumers at the “zero moment of purchase” — that is, while they’re shopping inside a store where a brand’s product are sold — is a proven way to increase conversion rates on mobile coupons and other discounted offers. Unfortunately, getting this type of high-impact marketing program off the ground can involve much more than a typical offline campaign. To find out more about what marketers should know, we consulted with experts in the field of purchase-based ad targeting.
Twitter is Developing Geo-Targeted Ads for Retailers (AdAge)
As soon as the end of the year, Twitter is planning to let brands show promoted tweets to people who open its mobile apps within close range of their stores. Twitter will enable ads to be targeted to people who are near specific latitudes and longitudes and could be ready as soon as the fourth quarter, according to two people briefed on the product.
#SFSW13 VIDEO: Local News as a Loss Leader? (Street Fight)
As local businesses shift marketing spending away from advertising, local media companies are scrambling to subsidize their news operations. During a panel at Street Fight Summit West earlier this month, Eric Bright, VP of Ecommerce at Deseret Digital Media; Mike Orren, President at Speakeasy; and Sean McDonnell, SVP of Sales at Propel Marketing discussed an emerging agency model, and debated whether digital marketing services like SEO and website building could help make up for lost revenue.
Paton: ‘Bad CEOs and Worse Editors’ Are Trying To ‘Kill Our Future’ (Poynter)
Speaking at the Global News Editors conference in Paris, Digital First Media CEO John Paton said Friday that “editors resisting change are aided and abetted by lousy CEOs and news executives.” In it he presents a slide he says “solves for the percent of dollars in print advertising, digital advertising, subscription revenue and all other revenue plus expenses and, of course, profit.”
Local Carousel Ranking = Maps Ranking = Location Prominence (Blumenthals)
Mike Blumenthal: As Dave Rodecker pointed out the other day in his comments on the roll-out of the Local Carousel, the ranking algo that Google is using is the same location prominence algo used in the current/old Google Maps. It means that traditional Location prominence factors of citations, reviews, branded links, and now, photos are more important than pure web rank.
‘Omni-Channel’ Is Coming: Make Big Shifts in Your Agency, or Be Left Behind (AdAge)
Paul Elliot: Most retailers may have begun to adjust to an omni-channel approach, with improved customer-service policies, new mobile features or updated product-delivery options, but they are still largely missing the mark. Still, several of the world’s most innovative chains are closing in on the ideal.
The Next Frontier of Navigation: In-Location Positioning (Wired)
While most are now familiar with “outdoor mapping” thanks to the advent of global positioning systems, many people continue to struggle navigating large indoor areas. While smaller businesses like aisle411 and Meridian kicked off the trend toward indoor mapping with their mobile apps, larger, leading corporations—think Google, Apple, and Microsoft—will be leveraging emerging technologies to revolutionize the industry.
Yelp Now Matches Photos and Reviews By The Same User on Desktop and Mobile (TheNextWeb)
Yelp today announced a small but noteworthy improvement to its service: it will now match reviews and photos made by the same user. As a result, visual and textual content will now appear together, both on the desktop and mobile versions of Yelp.
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